The Facebook epoch; Fossilization of self in the 21st century

Algirdas Nakas
Professor Palacio
27 September 2009

Marshall McLuhan, be seated please, the global village is speaking. No

longer is it enough to be one big earth village gazing at timed slices of
events punctuated by words from sponsors and projecting from
cathode ray tubes . The cool medium that was the 20th century
message (McLuhan) is overwhelmed by the mushrooming use of a
warmer medium, the social network. As social networks exponentially
evolve we have found that our messages are now the message. In less
then 5 years active Facebook users have grown from 1 million to 300
million worldwide (“Facebook”). We send them out ad nauseam to our
friends or friends of friends (likely perfect strangers) or fans never
certain as to where they may land or exactly what, if any, the reaction
will be. However, reaction or not, what we send through the electronic
ether does remain forever imbedded in the matrix of 1’s and 0’s that
defines our present existence. Little fossils of ourselves, our lives, our
homes, our families, our work, left floating in perpetuity. The ultimate
form of self-publishing, the permanent record of the energy of our
ideas.

Something has happened to our time constricted social lives. Physical

social interaction has been largely usurped by ethereal exchanges of
digital images and electronic messages. This is true for the innocent,
naïve adolescent as much as it is for aged, world weary academic. To
be sure, many opportunities for genuine points of face-to- face human
contact still exist, but more often than ever before, electronic social
exchanges made possible by social networking have become an
acceptable, and even preferable option. The exchange of personal and
affectionately selected imagery, both photography and videography, is
the social contact du jour. And the social network du jour is Facebook.

Significantly, Facebook expression is reaching beyond the boundaries

of personal friends and acquaintances into the “friend of friend” or
even into the public at large regions of the complete stranger. Should
we view this phenomenon as a trend to a frightening demise of
privacy, which indiscriminately opens the windows and doors to our
personal space? Or, perhaps a world changing opportunity to broadly
publish brilliant commentary and prose as well as exhibit our creative
visual expressions as often as we choose to? Could it be that the ease
of entry into the Facebook universe has unleashed the narcissistic or
exhibitionistic traits in some of us and allows indulgence in a shallow,
hedonistic pleasure. Or is Facebook something in-between, just a
relatively innocuous new form enhanced email communication?

The simple answer to these questions is that Facebook is, in different

instances, and to differing degree, all of these. But I will examine here
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the aspects of Facebook that have to do with the public expression of

personal identities. This is the part that is most relevant to my own art
and very unique culturally. What are the possible reasons for this
expressive discourse, why do we do it, and what is the true value and
the real or hypothetical consequences of this autobiographical self-
publishing. What is the ultimate potential for this stylized,
instantaneous human interaction.

As an artist and an art educator it has always been my belief that all
our forms of self -expression; writing, imagery, speech, dance, dress
etc., have great value. The freedom to express ourselves openly and
honestly not only benefits society, but is crucial to our own health,
spiritual and physical. This is the backdrop for my opinion that
Facebook is the most important form of communication since the birth
of McLuhans global village made possible by television. Facebook not
only lets us see the world, but have a real time dialogue with it’s
inhabitants that could affect action and human events. These
dialogues could be aesthetic, mundane, crisis oriented or political in
nature. But importantly they are still largely uncensored and
immediate and they are usually expressed from a point of view that is
somehow genuine. This honest expression of ideas can spontaneously
ignite not only more Facebook comment, but also political and social
change. This is nothing short of revolutionary. It is the exponential
expansion of the printing press to the television to the internet
encased in a palatable, easy to use and very powerful tool that lets the
global village speak to each other. This democratization of personal
expression is liberating. We all now have the opportunity to quickly
send our vibrations around the world. Not just the photographer
sending pictures to a newspaper, not just an anchorman reporting
news on a television network, but any of us can now publish our ideas
instantly for anyone to see. And if an idea has resonance, the idea can
spread virally into the world’s collective consciousness with a speed
never before imagined (I am including MySpace and YouTube , etc. in
this equation).

So exactly what sorts of personal, powerful, ideast are being sent via
the network? What is this earth shattering, personal expression that
defines the importance of Facebook? The beauty of Facebook is that it
elevates the small event, the little thought, the smaller audience and
the individual as well. Facebook is the medium that is being mostly
used for expression of the niche idea, the cult image, the singular
fetish. Ironically, it is these smaller expressions that give Facebook it’s
humanity, it’s real beauty. The simple photo of a group of friends on
vacation or at a party, it is this aspect of Facebook that says our
friends are important. It is the birthdays, the moments of joy or fatigue,
the melancholy or the laughs that we share with those we connect with
that gives us satisfaction or relief. This facet of Facebook creates a
Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town” sort of character to our networks, where
the passing of the seasons, the sunrise, the personal relationships of
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neighbors, are expressed within our own community as the things that
really have meaning (Wilder). Just as the dead came back to speak in
Wilder’s play, we will be digital ghosts dwelling forever in this
Facebook ether, forever leaving a record of someone’s 16th happy
birthday wall messages.

I have many “friends” on Facebook, and the majority of these are the
high school or college students that I have taught or currently teach.
The remainder is family, current adult friends and acquaintances or
friends from earlier years of my life that have reconnected. The group
that most interests me are the students. This is a group that was born
into this digital age and it is completely second nature to them. They
take the Facebook network totally for granted. I am stunned by the
thought that I can put up a picture of what I am doing at the moment
and it can be instantly seen by my network, while these young people
find this fact as mundane and ordinary. They see this as how they live,
they see electronic computer networking as nothing more significant
than casual chat in a school hallway. And that is pretty much how they
use Facebook. With casual conversation and imagery of what they are
doing, just did, or are planning. Importantly however is the fact that
their conversations are often vividly illustrated with candid and posed
photography as well as live video, video stills or recorded video. This
personal publishing by adolescents is unique in the history of man and
to adults gives great insight into their developing consciousness and
states of mind. As someone who has recorded many of their school
events, my own photography has been a part of what dwells on the
pages of my student friends. My photographic work has been a portion
of the evidence that reveals glimpses of their personalities, growing,
learning young people, that I care for greatly. As such I am concerned
that students of this age are less aware of the possible hazards of
freely releasing access to their lives to the world than older
generations (Govani/Pashley).

I have always had a kind of detached attitude while shooting

photographs of what is occurring in front of me. Or at least the portions
of what is before me that hold my visual interest. But no subject has
ever intrigued me to the degree that these young people do. The world
that they have inherited can be terrifying in many ways, yet they face
it with a light heartedness and an endless energy that is has always
been the hallmark of youth. I would love to see them use their
networks and energy to improve the human condition, and I believe as
they mature into an understanding of the communicative power they
possess through mediums such as Facebook, they will. And actually
there already exists on Facebook many groups and pages that are
definite green shoots sprouting with the possibility of that sort of
impact. Most of the charities and action groups that benefit the earth
outside of social networking are now found on Facebook as well.
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So in the pre-social network era, private, personal photos and

communications were limited to means of exchange that excluded
larger circles of people. We would physically show our albums by
turning pages while meeting a few others. Or we would send pictures
or videos via regular mail or possibly as email attachments or as email
with links to web pages enclosed. This effectively gave little access to
unanticipated viewers. We pretty much understood who was inspecting
our personal worlds. Today those circles have expanded to all those
that have some access to our networks. We set our privacy
preferences in Facebook settings to control this but, users are often
liberal with these settings (“Facebok”). For example switching a
privacy setting from “friends only” to “friends of friends” can expand
the audience of our digital selves by a factor of 10. For example if a
user has 130 friends allowed access but settings are changed to
“friends of friends” that audience of 130 could easily reach numbers
like 16,900 (multiplying the 130 friends, the current Facebook average,
with an average of 130 other friends). Our private worlds would be
anything but. Facebook does let you control most aspects of Facebook
access with their Privacy settings page. But mastery of these settings
can be a daunting task, for younger users or adults. The need to
understand the settings has created a market for information with
regard to this. A fellow named Nick O’Neill posted an internet article
called “10 privacy settings every Facebook user should know about”
which was viewed millions of times. This spawned a 24 page e book
called “The Holy Grail of Facebook Privacy” which is sold to those
interested (O”Neill). But to read and apply 24 pages worth of privacy
control information is something most adolescent users would bother
to do. This could potentially leave them vulnerable to sexual predators
or identity thieves. This is a frightening aspect of the brave new world
we inhabit. With exponential expansion of opportunities for self
expression also comes an equal increase in the possibility of unwanted
consequences.

Savvy adult users sometimes take unusual precautions in protecting

themselves and their intellectual property. One of my Facebook friends
is photographer Lauren Greenfield. She has established herself as a
premiere artist and has an interesting warning to Facebook posted on
her profile page:
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For whatever reason, Lauren found it necessary to watermark her

content in this fashion. So even beyond 24 pages of privacy control,
their may be a need to go further. That is by overriding Facebook’s
Terms of Use policies with a personal disclaimer. I can’t imagine
younger users or those without the experience of Lauren going that
far. Nor do I believe they probably have any need to. But with so much
detail about their lives being made available on their pages, more
education on self protection could be in order.

With that said, young people do usually safely communicate using

basic privacy settings and this list of Facebook options:

~Info pages use of linking to relevant sites

~Video pages for posting video creations
~Photo pages for sharing photography with others
~Status use for rapid conveyance of personal news
~News feeds for quick checks of what is occurring within their circle
of friends
~Calendars for keeping up with timely events
~Pages tabs for sharing info about important causes that affect our
world
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My strongest interest is with the positive use of photography and art in

networking by young people. Let’s examine some examples selected
from my friends pages.

In the screen grab on the

right, one of my former
students, now at RISD,
discusses a photo he
posted of an art
installation he created
in the hallway of his
dorm.

“Nothin’ like 600 slices

of bread on the floor.”

Though somewhat
simplistic,
think about how many
spontaneous works of art
you
may have
published for news
feed to a network
as a college
freshman. Myself,
in the 70’s, zero.

In the grab on the

right a former
student, now at
Syracuse in the
school of fashion,
discusses the right
to source of a
graphic she used
on a t-shirt design
from the catalog of
her start up
company,
“metropolis”.
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Fairly heady debate for a college sophomore.

In this screen grab, one of my current high

school students provides a link to his Flickr
Page containing a huge variety of his
illustrations and photos right below his
profile pic :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrisontelyan/

If you have a minute, it’s worth clicking on the link.

I find it fascinating to no end the maturity these students exhibit as

they launch bits of their creative selves out into the public domain. As
someone born in the early 50’s I am awestruck by the progress we
have made in technically democratizing art and expression so that
anyone with the desire and the energy can have contribute. Even if
this personal expression remains only as an eternal fossil, laying
exposed in the desert of digital time, waiting to be discovered by
searching eyes.
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References:

"Facebook Pressroom Statistics." Facebook. 04 Nov 2009. Facebook,

Web. 8 Nov
2009. <http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The extensions of man. 1st

ed. NY:
McGraw Hill, 1964. Print.

Thorton Wilder. Our Town: A play in three Acts. 1st ed. NY: Coward-
McCann,
1938. Print.

Giovani, Tabreez and Harriet Pashley. Student Awareness of the

Privacy
Implications when Using Facebook, 2005.
http://lorrie.cranor.org/courses/fa05/tubzhlp.pdf

The Unofficial Facebook Resource. 09 Feb 2009 . Social Times, Web. 8

Nov 2009.
<http:// O'Neill, Nick. "10 Privacy settings every Facebook user
should know." All
Facebook, www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/>.

"Facebook privacy." Facebook. 05 Nov. 2009. Facebook, Web. 8 Nov

2009. <http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?ref=mb>.

The Unofficial Facebook Resource. 09 Feb 2009 . Social Times, Web. 8

Nov 2009.
<http:// O'Neill, Nick. "10 Privacy settings every Facebook user
should know." All
Facebook, www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/>.